Expanding Universe

In the Quran, which was revealed
fourteen centuries ago at a time when the science of astronomy was still
primitive, the expansion of the universe was described in the following
terms:

[51:47] We constructed the sky with our hands, and we will
continue to expand it.

The word "heaven," as
stated in the verse above, is used in various places in the Qur'an. It is
referring to space and the wider universe. Here again, the word is used with
this meaning, stating that the universe "expands." The Arabic word
"moosiaaoona" in the term "inna lamoosiaaoona," translated into
English as "and we will continue to expand
it", comes from the verb "evsea," meaning "to expand." The prefix
"la" emphasizes the following name or title and adds a sense of "to a great
extent." This expression therefore means "We expand the sky or the universe to a
great extent." This is the very conclusion that science has reached
today.

Georges
Lemaitre

Until the dawn of the
20th century, the only view prevailing in the world of science was
that "the universe has a constant nature and it has existed since infinite
time." However, modern research, observations, and calculations carried out by
means of modern technology have revealed that the universe in fact had a
beginning and that it constantly "expands."

At the beginning of the
20th century, the Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann and the
Belgian cosmologist Georges Lemaitre theoretically calculated that the universe
is in constant motion and that it is expanding.

From the moment of the Big
Bang, the universe has been constantly expanding at a great speed. Scientists
compare the expanding universe to the surface of a balloon that is
inflated.

This notion was confirmed by the
use of observational data in 1929. While observing the sky with a telescope,
Edwin Hubble, the American astronomer, discovered that the stars and galaxies
were constantly moving away from each other. This discovery is regarded as one
of the greatest in the history of astronomy. During these observations, Hubble
established that the stars emit a light that turns redder according to their
distance. That is because according to the known laws of physics, light heading
towards a point of observation turns violet, and light moving away from that
point assumes a more reddish hue. During his observations, Hubble noted a
tendency towards the colour red in the light emitted by stars. In short, the
stars were moving further and further away, all the time. The stars and galaxies
were not only moving away from us, but also from each other. A universe where
everything constantly moves away from everything else implied a constantly
expanding universe. The observations carried out in the following years verified
that the universe is constantly expanding.

In order to gain a
clearer understanding of this, let us imagine the universe to be the surface of
a balloon being inflated. In the same way that the more the balloon is inflated,
the further away the points on its surface move from one another, celestial
bodies also move away from one another as the universe expands. This was
theoretically discovered by Albert Einstein, regarded as one of the greatest
scientists of the 20th century. However, in order to avoid violating
the "static universe model" that was generally accepted at that time, Einstein
laid that discovery aside. He would later describe this as the greatest blunder
of his life.

This fact was explained in the
Quran in a time when telescopes and similar technological advancements were not
even close to being invented. This is because the Quran is the Word of GOD: the
Creator and Ruler of the entire universe.